Our Favourite London Quotes

What hasn't been said about London? We invite you take a look at what some of the world's great literary geniuses have written and said about our city. And Stephen Fry, who 100% counts. And Rachel Weisz, who maybe doesn't, but who doesn't love Rachel Weisz?

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income. -George Bernard Shaw Source Ecosalon

You are now / In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow / At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore / Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more / Yet in its depth what treasures! -P.B. Shelley Source Thecultureur

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. -Samuel Johnson Source Thecultureur

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed. -George VI Source Thecultureur

One of the the things she most liked about the city -apart from all its obvious attractions, the theatre, the galleries, the exhilarating walks by the river- was that so few people ever asked you personal questions. -Julia Gregson Source Ecosalon

I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity? -Charlotte Brontë Source Thecultureur

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. -Oscar Wilde Source Thecultureur

The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. –Jane Austen Source Thecultureur

A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else. -Unknown Source Thecultureur

I don’t know what London’s coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals. -Noel Coward Source Thecultureur

This melancholy London – I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air. -William Butler Yeats Source Ecosalon

Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It’s the second biggest cause of death amongst the English in general. Sheer boredom. - Alexander McCall Smith Source Ecosalon

There’s a hole in the world / Like a great black pit / And the vermin of the world / Inhabit it / And it goes by the name of London. –Stephen Sondheim Source Thecultureur

The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts. –Ralph Waldo Emerson Source Thecultureur

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea. -John Osborne Source Ecosalon

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear — the city of London and the South Seas. -Herman Melville Source Thecultureur

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner / That I love London so / Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner / That I think of her wherever I go / I get a funny feeling inside of me / Just walking up and down / Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner / That I love London town. - Hubert Gregg Source Thecultureur

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Source Thecultureur

I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining. -Groucho Marx Source Ecosalon

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show -Samuel Johnson Source Brainyquote

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, / Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye / Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping / In sight, then lost amidst the forestry / Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping / On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; / A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown / On a fool’s head – and there is London Town. -Lord Byron Source Thecultureur

It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. -Arthur Conan Doyle Source Ecosalon